


Know that I'm with you

by anchy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-08
Updated: 2013-11-08
Packaged: 2017-12-31 21:48:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1036749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anchy/pseuds/anchy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam tries to regain control of his body after Lucifer possess it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Know that I'm with you

**Author's Note:**

> spoilers for seasons 1-5
> 
> Inspired by Be still-The Fray.  
> 

„Sammy, can you hear me?”

 

The voice was muted, as if coming from the other edge of a long drainpipe, distorted and with an eerie metal cling to it. It blew through the darkness surrounding him and snapped him out of what seemed like sleep, but was neither numbing nor restful. He realized he was lying on cold, hard ground, sprawled against nothingness, surrounded by nothingness. His limbs were aching, uncooperative, and weak, and showed him that getting up was an endeavor all on its own, which could be failed over and over again. Like a baby, stumbling forward every time he tried to stand up straight, he bruised his arms against floor, as he met it on the way down.

 

„ _Dean?! Dean I’m here_!” he yelled, pushing himself up again, feeling around in the dark for something, anything that could give him a sense of where he was. 

 

Within a terrible rumble, things started shaking underneath him, hit by an undefined earthquake of unquantifiable proportion. It sent him back down on the ground, roughly, and he cursed out loud because of it, rubbing a palm against the place where his hip hit the ground. It was throbbing in pain and giving off heat, making him hiss out every time he moved his leg, but he knew he had to push through the pain, had to go look for Dean, wherever he was.

 

In the distance, through the darkness, a small beam of light popped out, blinding him for a second, before his eyes got adjusted to the intrusion. The beam expanded, quickly and clearly, inch by inch, until he could see Dean in front of him, as if projected on wrinkly bed sheet. 

 

“You know? I tried to be nice…”

 

The voice resounded as if he were in a cave. It sounded like his own, but that couldn’t be possible. His lips never moved and he made no sound.

 

“…for Sammy’s sake,” the voice went on. “But you… are such a pain… in my ass.”

 

He felt the place shake again, as he saw two hands wrap around the front of Dean’s jacket and send him flying through the air into the Impala.

 

“ _No_!” Sam yelled. “ _DEAN_!”

 

The place shook again as Dean got closer and closer into view and at that moment, he realized, he was trapped in his own body, a puppet whose strings were being pulled by Lucifer, every step of the way.

 

“ _Fuck_ …” he breathed out, hands grasping at the sides of his head, eyes strained widely as Dean came on the makeshift screen again. “ _Focus_. _Focus_. _Focus_ , _dammit_!” he banged the side of his head with his fist and felt as if she was punching cotton. Nothing came to mind, no trick, no hint on how to manage this and his fists clenched in anger alongside him, untrimmed nails cutting into his flesh, as easy and painlessly kneading dough. The only thing to be able to hurt him was the ground, it seemed, as his attempt to punch his own leg ended up feeling like more of a tickle than a soon to be bruise.

 

The sound of a gunshot rang in his ears, clearer than any other noise had been this far. A numbing in his shoulder blade, undefined, but clearly centered, almost felt like pain.  

 

He felt his body, his real body, the one Lucifer was playing for a muppet, turn around.

 

“ _Bobby… no, not Bobby._ ”

 

The old man’s determined face, as he lifted his hand and shot Sam’s body straight through his heart subsided into helplessness, as he looked at Dean, and almost shrugged, all but too content to do this for his boys.

 

“ _Bobby! Get away from here! RU-_!”

 

His order stopped mid word, however, as he felt his own hand move to his side, unwillingly, and twist his wrist. The sound of cracking vertebrae penetrated the dark abyss and he saw Bobby fall to the ground, his collapse somehow linked to what he had just did.  

 

“ _NOOO_!” he shouted, echoing Dean’s own scream on the other side of the veil. He punched the emptiness, desperate to find something to hit, something to take his rage out on, to fling across the room, to beat the crap out of and prove to himself that this wasn’t his fault.

 

But the abyss reflected nothing back at him and he was left all alone, yet again, facing his powerlessness over the situation. Of course it was his fault this was happening. He was supposed be in control, was supposed to kill Lucifer as soon the angel entered the accepting body. But for some reason he couldn’t. He closed his eyes and bit the insides of his cheeks to stop a scream. The wet, slick flesh protested against the bite and sent a jolt of pain through him that somehow jump started him. He pinched his hand and felt his body respond again, skin reddening and hurting, disagreeing with his actions. Was this a good thing?

 

As if directly linked to Lucifer’s actions now, his body turned around, seamlessly on par with what the angel was doing on the outside and he saw Dean in front of him again.

 

“Yes,” his mouth muttered, grabbing Dean’s leg, pulling him down from the car’s hood and punching him so hard that the man flipped right around, spitting blood into his own hand.

 

“… _Dean_ ,” Sam mumbles, inside the darkness, heart pounding so hard he feels it’s gonna rip his chest open. His body was mimicking Lucifer’s actions inside this inescapable limbo and he had no idea how to make it stop.

 

He looked up at the veil for some signal from Dean, but all he saw was his brother’s hand, catching the blood that was flowing from his mouth. He turned to look into Lucifer’s eyes and asked,

 

“Sammy…are you in there?”

 

“ _Yes! Yes Dean, I am!”_

 

“Oh, he’s in here all right,” Lucifer said, throwing another punch, that Sam mimicked completely, alone in his darkened cage. “And he’s gonna feel the snap of your bones. Every single one.”

 

Sam was doing no harm, punching the thickened air, all alone with only his own hitched breathing for company, but his teeth were clenching and his eyes were blurry from tears as he could almost feel the ache in his knuckles from punching his brother with a body he had no control over.

 

“…Dean,” he cried to himself, choking silently on the knot in his throat, trying to keep his hand from moving the second Lucifer moved his. But like a puppet, he followed his master’s strings wherever they led him, whether he liked it or not.

 

He saw how Lucifer lifted his bloody brother off the ground and mutter “We’re gonna take our time,” through a half clenched jaw.

 

Sam squeezed his eyes shut and yelled out in almost physical pain as Lucifer threw punch after punch into Dean’s face, treating it as a living, barely breathing punching bag. In front of him the air swooshed as his punches landed precisely where Dean would be, had he been out there and not in here. He yelled and started crying, wanting to fall to his knees, but unable. Unable to even control the fake glimmer of a body that he had in this place. Unable to keep his brother from being beaten to death right in front of his eyes.

 

“Sammy…It’s okay. It’s okay I’m here…” Dean muttered as best he could, through his broken, swollen lips. Sam saw as his brother took hold of Lucifer’s clothes and look through those would be brown eyes and stare right at _him_. Him who was sitting in limbo, dragged left and right by a fallen angel, forced to look on as his body caused pain and suffering to his family. “I’m here. I’m not gonna leave you.”

 

“… _Dean_ ,” he cried to the canvas, “ _I can’t stop him_ …”

 

He pummeled into the air again, as Lucifer hit Dean for even daring to open his mouth. At that moment Sam gasped. His knuckles were aching and he was sure he wasn’t imagining it.

 

With all the willpower he could muster up he opened his fist, hand shaking so hard it threated to rip out of his wrist. He turned it around and looked at his palm, all the while feeling as if Lucifer wasn’t doing the same thing.

 

His brother’s voice rang in his ears, “I’m not gonna leave you.”

 

He looked straight at the canvas, feeling Lucifer’s gaze move along with his, the angel no longer fully in control. The light shined right into Sam’s eyes, bringing the jammed toy soldier in the car’s rear door clearly into view. He remembered being so scared that day; scared that his father would yell at him for ruining a part of the car, the same way they did when they scratched their names into it, a few months back. He’ll never hear the end of it, or even worse, he’ll get the silent treatment for the next few months.

 

Dean promised him that would never happen, though, because he would make sure to stand right next to Sammy and take the fall together. That’s what Dean did. He looked out for him, like a big brother should. Even now that they’re fully grown men, he knows he’ll always have someone to lean back on, if it ever comes down to that.

 

He noticed a hairline crack extending through the veil that showed him the outside world, as if the cloth were made out of pliable glass. The hint of an opportunity was grinning at him, and since there was surely nothing else that could go wrong he closed his eyes and took it.

 

~*~

 

The ruffle of covers peaked his attention long before the voice did. A bothersome trait he was beginning to pick up from his father, after years of standing to attention the second a noise that wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place grazed his ears.

 

“Dean… Dean you up?”

 

The boy’s eyes searched through the darkness and looked at the digital clock beside his bed. He figured out, after his brain caught up with him, that it was less than an hour since he’d actually managed to fall asleep, long after Sam went to bed. “I am now,” he mumbled, squeezing his eyes intently, trying to push back sleep for a little while longer and then opening them to look at Sam’s face. “What’s up, Sammy?”

 

“I can’t sleep.”

 

Dean frowned at the little boy. “What do you mean you can’t sleep? You’ve been sleeping for the past 4 hours.”

 

“No, I’ve been sitting in bed for the past four hours. I can’t sleep.”

  
As if on cue, their well-rehearsed dance came into play, as Dean lifted his cover and turned on his side, to make enough room for his baby bro. The day would come when Sam would be old enough to make this awkward, and Dean would have to push him away, the older boy thought, grabbing his brother’s head to his chest, but that day was in the future, and he was focusing on the present.

 

Their dad had been gone for five days now. Sam usually got impatient around the third and nothing seemed to calm him better than these nightly hugs.

 

“Why couldn’t you go to sleep?”

 

“Because I think something’s happened to dad.”

 

“Hey, hey, look at me. Dad’s fine, you understand? Remember last time he came back after a week and took us to that nice diner? The one where you got that girly milkshake?”

 

Sam nodded against his chest, warming Dean through his shirt, with every soft exhale.

 

“You’ll see. He’ll come back now and take us somewhere even better.” He knew he was lying, but what else was he supposed to say? That this was as good as it was ever gonna get? A sloppy dinner at a run of the mill diner and maybe some chocolate to say sorry for missing out on an entire week of your lives and leaving you to fend for yourself against God knows what might be after you?

 

“But what if he won’t?” Sam mumbled, mouth full of Tshirt cotton.

 

“He will.”

 

“But what if he _won’t_?”

 

Dean sighed, patted the little boy’s head and rested his chin against the soft puddle of hair presented in front on him. There was only one answer to that.

 

“Then I’ll look after you.”

 

~*~

 

The deep bite on the side of his leg was pouring out more blood than he had ever seen come out of him before. He was lying as still as he could, grasping at his thigh to slow up blood flow as much as he could until Dean came back.

 

Their father ran after the rugaru that did this, not waiting to see what would happen to Sam, trusting full well that Dean would know what to do. If he was going to die, Sam thought, as the seconds passed with no one in sight, he would do everything in his power to haunt his dad for the rest of his days. For making a 20 year old look after him, while he ran off into a forest, guns blazing, acting as if he didn’t have a family to take care of in the first place.

 

“I’m here, Sammy!” Dean yelled as he ran up to him and glided the last few feet along the wet and slick dirt path that Sam was sitting next to. He took a quick look at the place where a piece of flesh had been bitten clear off of his brother’s leg. The hole in the fabric, just above his right knee was covered in blood, making it impossible for him to see what he was doing. With a rough move he pushed his hands in the hole and tore up the jean all the way down Sam’s leg, pushing away the material and inspecting the wound. He pulled out a small flask from his pants, uncorked it and poured single malt whiskey over the almost bubbling blood patch.

 

Sam hissed in pain and thumped his fist against the dirt, knowing fair well that if his father were to hear him scream he’d be called weak and unprepared for this sort of thing, and he just wasn’t in the mood to hear any of that crap anymore. Before the wound covered up in blood again Dean got a chance to look at the damage. He smiled.

 

“Hey, you’ll be okay,” he mumbled, taking his shirt off and ripping one of the sleeves clear off. He tied it tightly around his brother’s upper thigh and poured another gulp of whiskey on top, just to be safe. “It didn’t get into any arteries, so the bleeding’s gonna stop soon enough.”

 

He saw his brother’s tensed gaze as the blood washed away from the bite along his leg and into the ground.

 

“Hey, s’okay Sammy boy. You’ll be just fine.” He chuckled, and added “next time just be sure that when you say ‘bite me’ that no one takes it literally.”

 

~*~

 

“Sam!”

 

Relief washed over him as he saw his brother in the distance, walking groggily and with a bust up arm, but alive and well.

 

“Dean.”

 

He’d grab him out of there, take him to Bobby’s place and mend him back, however much he needed mending. It was, after all, Dean’s job to look after his Sammy.

 

How he missed the raving lunatic behind him, seeing him grab the knife only after it was too late, he’ll never know, nor will he let himself forget. With the speed and viciousness of a cornered animal, the man lunged towards his brother.

 

“Sam, look out!” he yelled, a split second before his the man pushed into Sam.

 

The knife make no sound as it pierced through his little brother’s skin and Dean remembered thinking how could something that seemed so insignificant, so blatantly mundane for a hunter, be so deadly. The contorted look of pain on his brother’s face would haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life, if not more.

 

“Nooooo!”

 

He started to run before the knife even made its exit, but it was already too late. Sam collapsing on the ground was the only thing his eyes focused on. Let Bobby run after the psycho who did this, he had to put Sam back together. He ran as fast as his feet would let him and clashed into his brother with so much force he had to hold him by his jacket, to keep him from falling over. It still didn’t seem enough though, as his brother’s legs gave out underneath him.

 

“Sam! Sam… Sam, hey!”

 

His brother didn’t seem to have an answer for him.

 

“Come here, come here let me look at you,” he mumbled, pressing up against his lanky sibling, touching the wound on his back ever so lightly, and already getting a handful of blood in the process.

 

“Look, look, it’s not even that bad,” he mumbled to his brother’s face, so rough and emotional that he thought it wouldn’t even make sense. “It’s not even that bad,” he repeated. His brother’s head fell to the side, roughly, not able to sustain himself anymore. The heartbeat Dean felt through the fabric of their clothes was slow and weak.

 

“Sam! Sam! Hey, listen to me. We’re gonna patch you up, okay? You’ll be good as new, huh? I’m gonna take care of you, I’m gonna take care of you, I got you. It’s my job, right? Watching after my pain in the ass little brother?” He grinned through his teeth to try and convince Sam to do the same. His brother’s eyes had already closed and the heartbeat that was pumping against his chest was no longer noticeable. “Sam… Sam. Sam! SAMMY!”

 

How rude it must have been of Sam, to not answer when he was called, Dean’s mind uttered to him. Cause there was no reason to not answer. Sam wasn’t dead. He could never be dead. He was just being a dick as always and stringing Dean along for a joke. Like brother usually do. There was just no way he could be dead.

 

“No, nonononono. SAM!

 

He held on tight to the limp body for what seemed like weeks, until Bobby came back, empty handed, only to see Dean crying against Sam’s. He dropped to his knees, put a hand on Dean’s shoulder and waited for the boy to calm down, prepared for the worst. What he saw, however, when Dean looked up, were a pair of determined, rage filled eyes.

 

“I’m gonna fix this,” he said, not doubting his possibility to do so.

 

~*~

 

His arms and legs were shaking as much as the clasps allowed them too, his body trembling as if it was left on vibrate and forgotten that way.

 

“Fight it through, you idiot,” Dean mumbled from the doorway, where he had been quietly sitting for the past two hours, watching his brother’s constant and unsteady movements from afar.

 

Guilt scratched its long, sharp claws against his skin, marking him forever. There was no one to blame for this but him. He was supposed to take care of his little brother, keep him from drinking up that little bitch’s blood, as if it was soda pop. He felt disgusted with himself and was kicking himself every single which way he could, just short of doing anything that might hinder him from saving Sam.

 

With no intention of ever leaving his brother alone ever again, he stepped into the room and slowly made his way to the center, where beads of cold sweat were coating every inch of exposed skin. He pressed his hand against Sam’s forehead and felt the icy cold skin of a dead man. He had no idea what to think. Demon detox was one of the few things that were still a first for him.

 

He leaned over to the trembling man’s ears and whispered, “If you die, I’m gonna kill you.” With a quick glance to the door, to make sure Bobby wasn’t there, he pressed his lips against his brother’s icy cold ones and bit down on the bubbling emotions.

 

~*~

 

“Please let me do it, Dean. I can end this and put Lucifer back in his cage.”

 

His brother moaned, a significant difference in tone from what he had done until then and turned on his back, bringing his chest back into Sam’s view. It made the butterflies in Sam’s stomach do the cha-cha, but he pushed the thoughts down enough to be able to have a serious conversation for once.

 

“Screw you, Sam. This is manipulative, and you know it.”

 

“But Dean, I…”

 

“Listen Sammy, this might come as a newsflash to you, but I’m the kind of guy that likes to be quiet after a good fuck. Maybe catch some Zs if I’m lucky. Talking about the friggin Devil, less than 5 minutes after I came, is not one of the things I enjoy.” He turned his head to the side and was already to give Sam a few more harsh words before finally catching some sleep, before he saw the puppy dog eyes in full bloom. He almost visibly deflated, disappointed with himself that something like that would hold so much power over him. He turned his back to his little brother and mumbled,

 

“So help me God, Sam, if you give me those eyes again…”

 

He felt the man’s hand tug on his shoulder, determined, it seemed, to not let him rest at all that night. He grunted to show his disapproval, but obliged anyway, as he always did when it came to brother.

 

“Sam… what?” he asked, turning to face his mammoth of a brother only to be taken aback when he saw him curling up into a ball and pressing his face against Dean’s chest.

 

And with that small gesture, the behemoth of a man turned back into Dean’s little brother, in need of a hug before going to sleep. Dean leaned his chin against the same unruly mess of hair beneath it and wondered how he ever thought that there would come a time when he would push Sam away.

 

~*~

 

He felt as if he nearly drowned on air. His lungs were stabbing him from the inside out, his eyes were burning with a red hot fever and his body felt stretched, having to accommodate one too many in it.

 

He gasped trying to soothe the squeezing ache around his heart, as if Lucifer was gripping it tight enough to crush and saw Dean, bruised and battered on the ground in front of him. His big brother looked up, as if seeing Sam for the first time in a long time and a look of relief seemed to wash over his mangled, bloody features.

 

“It’s okay, Dean.” Sam spits in between pain filled breaths. “It’s gonna be okay.” He says, seeing how Dean’s still begging, silently, purposefully, to stop whatever he was planning on doing and try to figure something out. Sam doesn’t see any possible way to avoid it, however, and decides that maybe it’s time for him to save his brother, for once. His whole body was being burned up from the inside and he knew there was very little time until Lucifer came back. He gave a pained smile and uttered his last words to his brother.

 

 

“I’ve got him.”


End file.
